Letter that went to Media

Petition Protesting Sexist and Unfair Treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential Candidate.

Petition Protesting Sexist and Unfair Treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential Candidate. 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 2
Examples of bias and mistreatment include: 2
PETIION LOCATION: 4
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9070509978741926370&postID=8138840491748047747#_Toc210455542
SUMMARY OF PETITION AND SURVEY: 4
Highlights from the results: 6
RECEIPIENTS. 8

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Shortly after the introduction of Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate, many in the Main Stream Media, such as, but not limited to CNN, MSNBC, ABC and the New York Times engaged, propagated or tolerated sexist, unfair and abhorrent treatment of Governor Sarah Palin. Even after Senator Barack Obama, belatedly but respectably called for the media to cease the attacks, many in the media continue to this day.

While many feel that Senator Hillary Clinton was mistreated during the primary by the media, the treatment of Palin was at least as bad, if not worse. Never in the history of a Presidential, and certainly not a Vice Presidential election has such distasteful journalistic treatment occurred.
Examples of bias and mistreatment include:
· The immediate sexist comments questioning her audacity and abilities to run for office while raising a family and suggesting or stating that she’s a bad mother.[1]
· The condescending and manipulated interview with Charles Gibson on ABC.[2]
· Bay Buchanan’s comments to a visibly irate Campbell Brown during CNN’s “Election center” that the name of the show should be changed to the “Anti-Sarah Show”[3] as a result of Campbell Brown attacking Gov. Sarah Palin profusely on the show.
· The relentless attacks on her family.[4]
· The failure to investigate similar concerns on other candidates. For example:
o How many interviews were conducted with rank and file members of Trinity Church?
o Was any attempt made to find people who worked with Bill Ayers and Barack Obama at the CAC in order to fact check Obama's contention that they interacted very little? The evidence is damning and the questions it raises are serious, yet, the Main Stream Media coverage has been almost non-existent, facts ignored and relationship watered down.[5][6][7]
o Comparison of the depth and probing nature of the coverage is key, not a mere statistical count showing the existence of articles that covered the topic.
· Failure to report with commensurate depth and analysis the successes of Gov. Palin such as the ethics bill and pipeline deal among others. These are largely presented as if public knowledge when few outside of Alaska have familiarity with them. Questions that should have been investigated:
o What was in the ethics bill exactly?
o Why was it so popular?
o How was it signed and approved?
· How many words covered those topics compared to the words of her detractors? If both were presented in an article, what was the lead paragraph and headline?
o For example, Steve Haycox mentions in one article, “'She is bright and has unfailing political instincts,” yet the headlines reads: “In Alaska, Sarah Palin hired friends, hit critics hard,” buries accomplishments and full of harsh opinions from political foes.[8]
· Disturbing sexual comments such as referring to Gov. Palin as a “MILF”[9] with minimal condemnation by news outlets.
· Failure or under emphasis to cover the privacy violation aspects of the hacking of Gov. Palin’s personal email contents, and lack of condemnation for the attack. Barack Obama, to this day, as far as can be told, has not condemned this attack while having previously taken full political opportunity to blame the Bush Administration when a contractor accessed Obama’s, McCain’s and Hillary Clinton’s passport records.
· Continual focus on her time as Mayor of Wasilla fully SIX years ago, ignoring the two years on the Oil and Gas Commission, nearly two year record as Governor taking on corruption in her own party all with high level of accomplishments constantly exceeding expectations acknowledged even by her political opponents.[10][11][12]
· The barrage of disturbing and unsubstantiated or poorly investigated false rumors driving headlines twenty four hours a day. [13]

These are only some examples and many more can be found on the Internet. I have provided some starting points. [14][15][16]

A Ramussen Report found that 51% of pollsters feel that the “Media is trying to hurt Palin.”[17] Another Ramussen Report found that an astounding “69% say reports try to help their candidate win.”[18] Media organizations of course may choose whether they wish to fall into that category or even to explicitly advocate for a given candidate. However, is no surprise then that even ex-Clinton aide Mark Penn rightly stated that “the media has lost credibility with voters.” [19] The New Agenda, a no-partisan group for women’s rights that previously spoke out towards the mistreatment of Hillary, also came out to speak out against Palin sexist treatment as among other groups.[20][21] In short, the viewers and voters are not buying it. They are furious and protesting. It is no surprise that some say that 2008 is the year journalism has died.

To capture the feelings of how people feel over this treatment, a petition was created and distributed with the help of other online supporters.

PETIION LOCATION:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/womenforpalin/index.html

Although initially created to capture the voice of women, it was expanded to allow anyone to sign the petition that is upset at the media treatment and looking to speak out. The petition further evolved to survey the demographics and opinions on the treatment and the results were surprising. With the help of other bloggers, over one thousand three hundred signed the petition as of 09/26/2008.

I have included a printout of the petition for you to review. It shows the first approximate one thousand respondents, an electronic copy of the results and the tabled summary generated by the ‘ipetitions statistics’ software.

SUMMARY OF PETITION AND SURVEY:

The table below is a summary of the top five responses from each question in the survey. To see the full details, reference the excel sheet.

As the survey evolved, some questions were added after the initial creation of survey the reason behind the lower number of respondents. The number of respondents is listed above the table.

Signatures (First and Last Names)

Total number
1360
....................

Highlights from the results:
Nearly 70% of respondents are female.
Over 90% feel that the treatment of Governor Sarah Palin was “extremely unfair or sexist.”
Over 88% of respondents feel that Governor Palin is qualified to be the next President.
Over 25% of Gov. Palin supporters are ex-Hillary supporters.
Over 40% feel that booting haughty anchors and commentators such as Olberman and Matthews from election coverage addresses some of the concerns.
Over 50% have stated that they will cease watching network and shows that treat Governor Palin unfairly.


CONCLUSION:
This letter and petition were created to bring awareness that as viewers and voters, we will not be told who to vote for, who admire and who to hate. The public demands that networks and news organization address this behavior and apologize where mistakes have been made. The media has crossed the line of decency and have clearly abandoned their objectivity. If networks and news agencies refuse to address the problems with such poor journalism, we will contact the main sponsors of the show and boycott their products. While you may exercise your First Amendment right within legal limits as you wish, so will we.

http://mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com/
mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com@gmail.com

A number of bloggers and online supporters helped in this effort. Those included among many others:
http://www.palinforamerica.com/,
http://www.purplevote.com/,
http://www.clintons4mccain.com/ ,
http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/,
http://www.nobamanetwork.com/.
http://libertariansforpalin.blogspot.com/

RECEIPIENTS:
CNN, Network
One CNN Center
GA 30348-5366
Attn: Jonathan Klein

MSNBC
MSNBC on the InternetOne Microsoft WayRedmond, WA 98052
Attn: Phil Griffin

ABCNEWS
ABCNews, 7 WEST 66th Street,
New York, NY 10023
ATTN: David Westin

Time Inc. 1271 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Attn: Richard Stengel

The New York Times620 Eighth AvenueNew York, NY 10018
Attn: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.

Newsweek251 W. 57th St.New York, NY 10019
Attn: Donald E. Graham

CC:
John McCain 2008P.O. Box 16118Arlington, VA 22215
Attn: Steve Schmidt

NAME AND COMMENTS FROM APPROXIMATELY ONE THOUSAND PETITIONERS:

REFERENCES:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/womenforpalin/index.html
1] http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2008/08/29/cnn-s-john-roberts-palin-might-neglect-her-disabled-infant
[2] http://www.nypost.com/seven/09122008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/abcs_bungles_128726.htm?page=0
[3] http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kerry-picket/2008/09/07/bay-buchanan-campbell-brown-hour-should-be-called-anti-sarah-show
[4] http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2008/09/04/cbs-s-rodriguez-fair-attack-palin-family-they-are-used-campaign
[5] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html#printMode
[6] http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2008/09/23/barack-obama-bill-ayers-stanley-kurtz-makes-connection
[7] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
[8] http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/DN-palin_14pol.ART.State.Edition1.26e9372.html
[9] http://www.sohh.com/2008/09/news-pharrell-c.html
[10] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091803492.html
[11] http://libertariansforpalin.blogspot.com/2008/09/when-newsweek-was-objective.html
[12] http://mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/democrat-mike-gravel-gives-praises.html
[13] http://www.newsweek.com/id/157986
[14] http://www.fightthepalinsmears.com/smears-daily/
[15] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/palin_and_the_partisan_press.html
[16] http://tinyurl.com/3jwdqc (newsbusts.org search for “Palin”)
[17]http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/51_say_reporters_are_trying_to_hurt_palin_39_say_she_has_better_experience_than_obama
[18] http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/69_say_reporters_try_to_help_the_candidate_they_want_to_win
[19] http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/09/12/ex-clinton-aide-media-tougher-palin-losing-credibility
[20] http://thenewagenda.net/media/press-releases/august-31-2008-the-new-agenda-to-serve-as-watch-dog-for-women-candidates/
[21] http://womencount.org/blog/blog_detail/2008-09-sexism-and-sarah-palin